


To miss the march of this retreating world

by FaustianAspirant



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-18
Updated: 2012-09-18
Packaged: 2017-11-14 13:28:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaustianAspirant/pseuds/FaustianAspirant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’ve switched from parables to temper spells in the space of seconds; objectively speaking, that’s impressive. Personally speaking, Sam could stand to draw this one-man psychomachia to its conclusion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To miss the march of this retreating world

_Courage was mine, and I had mystery;  
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery_

\- ‘Strange Meeting’, Wilfred Owen

“So, the Good Samaritan runs into this guy, see, and he’s spewing up his own teeth on the ground, making all kinds of unattractive noises – packet of broken limbs and mincemeat sorta deal. Turns out he’s been beaten in the biggest bar brawl the Jericho Inn has seen since the Almighty Olive Pit Bash-up of 68BC. Like, there’s blood. An awful lot of blood. And an awful lot of teeth. Did I mention the teeth? It’s as if the guy didn’t have any left in his head: that is the degree to which he was pulverised. Our Samaritan shrugs, kicks at a nearby molar, and after a moment’s hesitation, he turns around. Sighs. And, of course, he goes and does the whole saving shtick – and yeah, this is ringing a couple of bells, right? Hoists him onto his donkey, crowds him into the nearest inn, and asks no questions. So far, so good. Afterwards, he meets up with all his buddies at the local tavern, but see, he’s late, so he has to do the whole tedious explanatory deal. And because our guy’s a little dim, he doesn’t think to lie. So, understandably, his friends are like, “What’d you do that for, mate? Now everyone’ll think we’re soft!” And the Samaritan rolls his eyes, looks somewhere in the vicinity of the heavens and says: “Aw, come on. They ain’t exactly gonna write a goddamn book about it now, are they?” And he orders another beer.” A pause; a breathing space. If he had a beer, he’d be swigging it, taking the time to swallow, letting it hit the table with a definite crash. As it is, he just – well. Breathes. It’s not even a necessity. “Take it from someone far older and much prettier than you, Sam Winchester: _you cannot win this one_. And if you did, they’d only go and write a goddamn book about it.” 

Which is easy for him to say. But Sam’s not lucid enough to search for the moral, and frankly, too apathetic to care either way. This has been the case for the past six months. Right now, he finds he can’t distinguish time or location with any kind of accuracy - or, for that matter, interest. Life has been tamped down and re-compartmentalised into short bursts of coherence: the foundations of routine; sepia ringed coffee cups, lined like the centre of a tree; the perennial twin beds - with fluctuating colours, but always in the same style – one rumpled, one immaculate; and the slight, ever-present weight of conviction that his options are leaking away gradually, in the steady drip-flow of hours. All the while, _Purgatory_ has been his one tether – and he’ll be damned if he’ll cut it now, not when he’s this close. 

Moreover, he’ll live for the eye roll, for the predictable “don’t be an idiot, kiddo”, if only for the satisfaction of telling him he’s _wrong_. 

“Don’t get me wrong, Tiny – I’m flattered as ever to be a fixture of your bedtime fantasy fodder – but don’t you think this is getting a mite… obsessive?” 

They’re in the warehouse. They’re always in the warehouse, with the faint, oppressive wrapping of damp, and the ring of ashes scorched across the centre of the floor – unless they’re in Broward County, which wasn’t funny the hundred and forty eighth time, let alone an additional twice more in his dreams. That he still has the patience to flog _that_ particular dead horse after all these years most likely explains how it never seemed to bore him in the first place. But right now, they are in the warehouse. It’s dark – too dark to focus, and too bare for distraction, and overall, Sam can’t summon the patience for another lecture, not _now_. 

“You’re not a fantasy,” he tells him.

“Lotta people’ve said differently,” smirks Gabriel, perched jauntily in the edge of a crate. “In bed,” he clarifies, in case of ambiguity. 

Sam lets it drop. “I’m not dreaming,” he points out, instead. 

“You could be,” shrugs Gabriel, rapping his heels against the crate. They stick a little, every time, like his feet are too heavy to draw forwards without any effort, unless he just can’t be bothered to make _any_ effort. Which figures. 

_Thump_. Pause. 

“I’m not.” 

_Thump_. Pause. _Thump_. 

“Why not?” 

Sly, interrogative pause. 

“ _This_ ,” says Sam, gesturing - towards the crates, the walls, the space where Gabriel had stood as though proffering a sermon - as if to summarise and encompass the very _thisness_ of their surroundings. “This isn’t mine. You are not pinning this one on my subconscious.” He takes a step closer to Gabriel; careful now, because he doesn’t take his eyes off him once, in the pervading dim – “And what you’re saying isn’t me, either.” 

“Congrats,” says Gabriel, flatly – as if there were no doubt that this is him, here, his. Gabriel, who hasn’t moved at all, save for his swinging feet. You’d think he would move, if only to prelude the point. “You remember I might have called you an idiot before? Yeah, sorry about that. Descriptively vague. Let’s change that one to _supercilious freaking cretin_.” He jumps down – and there it is, the moral of this story, about to be plated and served with a flourish. “No, Sam. This isn’t you. Well done. This is me, telling you to wise up, or go home – preferably both! Capisce?” 

Sam’s not really sure how to _capisce_ that. So he tosses across the remaining distance, disingenuous and overloud: “Not too clear on what you’re hinting there, Gabriel.” 

“Yes you are. You are, you absolutely are, and you are _not_ going to do something so colossally stupid just to live up to how gormless you look.” Gabriel gives one of those large, full-bodied eye rolls – but stiffens his neck mid-circle, as if he’s fudged a cue, and for a second, the performance frays. Shadows spill across his face, like it’s been soaked darker; he’s close now, and closer to preaching – or acting, maybe. “Don’t even try to pretend you’re not about to crack open Purgatory like a Kinder Surprise, Sam. Just. Do not insult my intelligence like that. I don’t care how big or how self-righteous you are, you cannot just bite chunks out of the universe whenever you feel a familial obligation. Otherwise it’s cutesy fraternal bliss for you, and teeth-marks in the stuff of reality for the rest of us.” He laces his arms together and shifts his shoulders back: immoveable, implacable: _and so it is written_. “Not that the whole awesome self-sacrifice extravaganza didn’t clue everyone in to this before, but I happen to _like_ reality.” 

It’s the set of his face - the inconclusive swagger and the spent fire of his eyes that prompt Sam to snap: “Yeah, well it’s not like you’re getting any less dead.” Gabriel’s mouth slants into gentle scepticism, and that’s _it_ , that’s enough for him to forget that this means _nothing_ , and just- just carry on talking, like it amounts to something significant. “So tell me: whose rules are we playing by, exactly? You want me to poke a head into the Cage and ask Michael for a second opinion? You think _Lucifer_ could give a crap? The closest thing you guys’ve had to a leader since Armageddon fell through is a broken angel who went Robespierre on his own revolution, and he’s not exactly available for comment either. So you want to give me one reason why we’re still talking?” A direct pause. None are immediately tendered. “Because from the looks of things, it’s the meek who have inherited the earth. It’s open season on the world-breaking front, and I _don’t give a damn about what’s right_.” 

Moments pass, slick with silence. It’s both too close here, and at once too empty. Then, Gabriel issues a soft, unbroken hiss of breath. “Oh, _kiddo_.” That’s – there’s sympathy there. Unbelievable, and heavy as anything; presumptuous as words set down in an age where no-one cared, least of all understood – and god, he is _sick_ of this, but there it is. Sam is apparently still the precocious kid to be reprimanded and indulged in succession – _still_ , even when he is more or less the only one left. 

“Don’t,” he says, sharply, as if Gabriel could ever _not_. As if he’s even sure about what he’s asking. 

But Gabriel’s still looking at Sam like he _gets_ what this is about; like it’s suddenly clicked that Sam is alone, properly, and damn near irrevocably – and it’s with an ironic sort of pity that he touches a hand to Sam’s shoulder and says: “So I knew Icarus, back in the day.”

And seriously, _what_ ; Sam jerks back, on instinct. 

Gabriel lets his arm trail away and continues without a single glitch in the performance – as if all of this, even the rebuff, were scripted. Which it might as well have been. Might _actually_ have been. “Nice guy. Tad too studious for my taste, but, well. Anyway, so I tell him for the love of all that is marginally holy to give the flying thing a miss, Jesus Christ on an improbable vehicle, what the hell were you thinking, and _are_ you thinking – except Jesus and hell, and also most vehicles were a little ahead of his time, so that one kinda flopped. Whatever.” He starts tapping his foot again – this time, letting it clash against the floor in hyperactive, arhythmical patter. “But he turns to me, with the same kind of squinty, serious face that _you_ get when you’re on the brink of doing something phenomenally dumb, and says: “Why? And why not?” That one really cracks me up. “Why do you _think?_ ” I ask. He hazards a guess. “Because any attempt at flight is the quintessential definition of overreaching, and man is destined to rise only so far before he inevitably falls?” “No,” I say. “Come _on_. Because any physicist worth their mismatched socks and Doctor Who fetish could tell you that _wax_ isn’t even remotely aerodynamic, you incredible _twit_.”” 

Sam wonders if this is the way angels have always talked to humans. Like they’re reasoning with toddlers too busy stretching the fundamental laws of the universe to breaking point to remember to tie their shoelaces and wipe the Nutella from the corner of their mouths. “Cute. Except you just made that up,” he points out, reasonably, like somebody whose shoelaces are in perfect working order. “In fact, you’ve basically been making all of this up. For starters, it was Icarus’ _Dad_ who designed the wings. And also, weren’t you in Scandinavia at the time?” 

For all of a second, Gabriel grins, but, as usual, it’s lost in the wake of his next five expressions or so. After some rearrangement, he settles into the look that Sam has come to label in his head as ‘lightly didactic’. “Well, yeah. Cool story, though, right? Appropriate, too. Thematically apt. Because, when it comes down to it, there’s a big difference between divine prohibition and a really, genuinely _stupid_ idea.” He gives a wide, open-handed shrug – once more, doling out the moral, gracefully arranged and garnished with a smile. 

“I don’t care,” Sam counters, immediately. Because if Gabriel has already worked it out, there’s no point in feeding each other formalities. Heaven is a failed state, and free will finally won out, and the world might as well be an empty glass dome for all that any of it matters; it’s not a question of independence anymore – they both know that isn’t their fight. But they’ll play it out anyway, because damned if Sam will let this become a conversation about how Gabriel was _right_ , not about Purgatory, but about Dean being his weakness, or – god, just admit it – his world. “The thing about me and Dean, is – ” is, are, they simply _are_ , and how to put that? “- that it’s not about whether something’s a stupid idea. It’s about taking whatever _you_ people – heaven, hell, and everything in between – try to throw at us, and fighting back. We’ll dodge, we’ll roll with the punches, and we’ll get beaten – hell, we’re almost always beaten at first. But we don’t give up. Because death was never a problem. Hellfire was never a problem. Compared to that, Purgatory’s a weekend retreat, and I almost literally cannot quit _now_ of all times. I don’t know if you ever got that – if you ever understood that thing, the thing about me and Dean.” 

There’s a newfound flash of fire to Gabriel’s reaction, even if it’s dampened by the shadows, and that ubiquitous thread of pity. “So your argument is essentially that I lack the basic moral fibre to fathom the epicness of your cosmos-obliterating brotherly _whatever?_ Is that it? Sam, I spent over a hundred Tuesdays trying to cram that exact collection of facts into your freakish, Neanderthalic cranium. With one proviso: whatever _fondness_ you have for your _siblings_ can’t counteract _material reality_.”

“I don’t know,” says Sam, quietly. “It’s worked before.” 

Gabriel seems to make a principle out of ignoring that. “You think I don’t understand you? I am probably the only intelligent life form left around here that actually understands anything!” 

Sam lets out a faint huff of laughter. “No,” he says. It has become increasingly clear that they have nothing left to learn from each other. Not that it’ll stop either of them from pressing – because apparently, that’s how it works now. “You think you do, but you don’t. You don’t have all the answers, Gabriel. Mostly because you never bother to _listen_.” 

“Yeah, well as someone whose long-term, self-delegated mission has to been to get you to take a _message_ , lemme tell ya something, Sammy: your reading comprehension skills? Also leave a little to be desired.” Charming. So clearly, didacticism has been quenched by the more immediate goal of harassing Sam into submission. They’ve switched from parables to temper spells in the space of seconds; objectively speaking, that’s impressive. 

Personally speaking, Sam could stand to draw this one-man psychomachia to its conclusion. “Okay, enough.” He doesn’t raise a hand – doesn’t move, actually; nothing here speaks of surrender. Nothing is supposed to. His voice bounces bluntly across the walls, before reverberating its way into stillness. A moment later, Gabriel takes a swipe at the quiet with another, pointless rejoinder, before Sam quashes it: “Dammit, I said that’s _enough_.” 

Gabriel quirks a sceptical eyebrow. But he shrugs his assent with a fatalistic sort of grimace, like he was expecting this – expecting it sooner, even – and this too refuses to carry a scrap of concession. Then, still fixing his eyes forever on Sam, he sinks slowly to the floor, drawing an arm over his legs in a comfortable sprawl. His eyebrows snap back up again – this time, imperative. Sam gets it. Sam moves to sit, too – slowly, like Gabriel, like it’s the keystone of this apparent armistice. 

“Look, I feel for you, kid,” Gabriel says, eventually, once they’ve aligned themselves with unspoken care, four meticulous inches apart; Sam swears it’d be accurate to the millimetre. He’s not sure why it ought to matter, but somehow the most arbitrary rules seem inviolable now. “Honest to God, always did. But, jeez, learn a little restraint, would you?” 

Sam just lets his head flop forwards and _laughs_ – laughs through chunks of his own hair and through Gabriel’s bemusement - because, from the incessant celestial intercession, to the ongoing family feud spanning several dimensions, there is practically nothing left to restrain besides how inexplicably _funny_ he’s currently finding it. So he laughs hard, and jagged in his throat, and somehow defiantly – as though if he could let go for long enough, he’d break into his composite fragments; and as though somehow, that might actually help in the end. He doesn’t – or rather, he holds together, holds too hard, even – but it’s a similar brand of cathartic as a knife to the gut. Focussed, bright, and more than a little painful - but he laughs all the same. Then, since this has immediately become too much, and since he’s the only one laughing, he hauls it all back in, and sputters back into silence. It’s abrupt, messier than the noise. He can’t fathom these sporadic stripes of hush, sheeting down across this room, this makeshift battlefield, muddying what ought to be uncomplicated for the both of them. He can’t parse the intent of this ceasefire, or this storyline. 

When he’s done, Gabriel snorts. “You know, not to harp on the blindingly obvious, but you, pal? Are so far beyond my help it’s ridiculous.” 

The notion that Gabriel has been trying to _help_ strikes Sam as even funnier than the possibility of restraint, but he’s done with laughing, for now. He feels – lightheaded. Breakable. Broken, even. “I don’t need your help,” he says, but he wraps it around an attempt at a smile – though it’s twined with a deep-rooted, absent sort of fracture that he can’t quite locate. Like seeking out the source of a wound, or probing a toothache, except at once both more intense, and more elusive. 

“You sure as heck need somebody’s.” 

“Yeah, but I never needed yours.” Sam is working on dispelling any inequalities in the pace of his breathing. It’s still too sharp, too heavy, and it rattles around the gloom like a marble flung across the floor of a church. He tries to school himself into some semblance of regularity – some sense of pace – and succeeds, to a point. The scrape of his breath recedes. 

“Believe it or not, Winchester, not everything cycles back to your one-man vanity stand in the name of liberty, equality and isosceles sideburns. Some things are about other people, and other people’s families. _Helping_ you was never about helping _you_.” 

“Yeah, that’s. Kinda the problem.” Also the point. 

“Kinda not your prerogative, either.” Also _not_ the point, but Sam gets it – he really does. He almost sympathises. In fact, that’s essentially the way they roll, isn’t it? Crossed wires, cross purposes and a surface-level kind of comprehension that almost approximates sympathy. Pity how it never amounts to anything significant, in reality; Sam will always stand in the way of Gabriel’s plan, intentionally or otherwise, and Gabriel will continually do his best to scupper Sam’s. They’re – not quite antithetical, though, is the thing. It’s like listening to two slightly off-key pianos playing in unison, completely attuned to themselves, but dissonant in light of the other, and – and that’s almost funny too, but Sam really is done with laughing. 

He’s not quite done with this, though. “So basically, this isn’t about me, this never was about me, but in your entirely disinterested opinion, I need some serious help anyway?” 

“Basically? Yep.” Gabriel leans back, palms splayed, seemingly congratulating himself on having explained this so comprehensibly – and seriously, screw that; who made him arbiter? 

“You’re still wrong. I’m not – I’m _okay_. I know, because sometimes I’m surprised at exactly how okay I am. I’m alive, and I’m fine, and one way or another I’m going to fix this.” He’s kept calm, thus far; surprisingly calm, and surprisingly focussed. It surprises Gabriel too. He suspects that it always did – not that it ever impressed him, either way. 

“You’re delusional.” This spoken flatly. 

“You’re _dead_ , Gabriel.” It’s – true, at any rate. 

Gabriel catches his gaze with a strange sort of look, where pity has deepened into a subtler kind of – reverence? Something like that, anyway. Uneasy, almost involuntary. He shifts closer, in a snatch of movement that Sam can hear and feel rather than see or apprehend, and again, he reaches over. He touches two fingers to Sam’s forehead, and before their surroundings lose all solidity, he murmurs: “And you’re dreaming, Sam.” 

The warehouse evaporates along with the sound. 

-

Sam wakes in the same, rumpled bed, in the usual tangle of sheets – in the numberless twin room, in the nameless concrete building, in what is more the platonic ideal of cheap motel accommodation than a definite place of its own. Colourless halls, and interchangeable furniture; interchangeable routine. He doesn’t so much travel anymore as he cycles through a catalogue of possible settings: plays spot the difference with a misplaced lamp; a cracked faucet; a carpet stain; another dead-end lead. It’s adequate. It’s enough. 

He doesn’t have to come to terms with the fact that this might be internal to him. That if it wasn’t really Gabriel, then part of him must have _wanted_ it to be. He doesn’t have to come to terms at all. Instead, he can fade straight back into the formula of get up, get dressed, eat, _work_ , sleep if you must – sleep if you think you can take it. And if sometimes there comes a point where it’s okay to give up – if, in the end, that’s all he was saying, after months of irrelevant research, and nothing to show for it; less for which to hope – then that’s not something that has to apply to him. Not if he doesn’t allow it. If Gabriel can push the same joke past its limit – past his _death_ , even - then Sam can stretch a cause to the very brink of its durability, and then some. 

It’s _his_ subconscious, _his_ unwitting fantasy; it can mean whatever he damn well wants it to mean. 

He thinks, ever so briefly, of Icarus. 

Then he opens another book, runs a finger down the contents page, and directs his efforts towards something useful.


End file.
